Schools, businesses, government agencies, and other entities often find it necessary and/or desirable to provide informational messages and alerts to certain individuals and groups of individuals. Such messaging may be done to communicate relevant information regarding operational and policy decisions that affect the individual or group or their relationship with the sender of the message or alert. For example, it is a commonplace activity for many businesses, government agencies, schools, churches, clubs, associations, and other groups to provide messages to an individual or group of individuals with informational updates, details for upcoming events, changes to scheduled events, policies and procedures, reports and results of activities, and so on.
In some school districts, administrators recognize that certain teachers tend to send more messages to parents reporting on undesirable student behavior than messages reporting on desirable student behavior. Many schools and school districts also recognize that increasing the number of positive student behavior messages compared to the number of negative student behavior messages helps foster a better relationship between the school and parents, which in turn aids student learning. Accordingly, it may be desirable to increase the ratio of positive student behavior communications to negative student behavior communications.
A wide variety of systems and processes exist for providing messages and alerts to individuals and groups of individuals. These include both manual and automated systems, with many computerized messaging systems now being offered by various companies. Computerized messaging systems can be used to generate messages in forms such as email, voicemail, or short texts, which are then sent to one or more interested individuals or groups of individuals.
Many organizations and agencies, including commercial businesses, governments, and schools, have adopted and implemented computerized messaging systems, with varying degrees of success. Some computerized messaging systems provide little opportunity for customization. However, since the communication of timely and effective messages is important to many organizations, these computerized messaging systems have been broadly adopted in many locations and environments despite their inflexibility.
While the ability to efficiently and effectively create and send messages and alerts is often desirable, some issues are associated with the adoption and implementation of computerized messaging systems. For example, many organizations do not have the optimal staff and/or equipment to effectively and efficiently create, deliver, track and report the results of automated or semi-automated messaging campaigns. This may lead to inaccuracies or gaps in the delivery of the message to the intended recipients. Additionally, given the potentially wide variety of messages' number and frequency, targeted recipients, and message content, when disparate organizations are considered, it is often difficult to find a messaging solution that meets specific needs, leading to reluctant acceptance of solutions that are less than satisfactory. The costs of messaging system implementation can be daunting for many organizations, particularly schools and non-profit organizations. However, since creating and monitoring the delivery of messages to the relevant constituency is vital to many operations, it is rarely an optional activity. Accordingly, without improvements in the current systems, procedures, and methods for messaging, the overall process and user experience will continue to be sub-optimal.